


Spy Games

by ishafel



Series: The Backstory 'Verse [15]
Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: Backstory, F/M, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-27
Updated: 2010-08-27
Packaged: 2017-10-11 06:55:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/109683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ishafel/pseuds/ishafel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>London, 1981.  Severus has a secret. So does Lucius. And sometimes love, it just ain't enough.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spy Games

He takes Severus out and gets him beyond drunk, and then he gets him talking. There are things Severus doesn't know, of course, or doesn't know he knows. He'd have a Pensieve somewhere safe. It doesn't matter. Lucius isn't looking for detail.

It costs him four hours and twenty galleons worth of firewhiskey and Merlin's Black Magic Ale, and three hours after of Severus being sicker than Lucius has ever seen anyone be in his life. The Dark Lord has been trying for over a year to get into Severus's mind, but Severus is brilliant at Occlumency and immune to veritaserum.

Lucius thinks sometimes that the Dark Lord has forgotten what it means to be human. But now that he knows the secret Severus is protecting, he is grateful. Let Lord Voldemort find that there is one spy among his Death Eaters, and he will destroy them all looking for a second and a third.

It is not so much that is a girl that surprises Lucius. It is that it is this girl: scrawny, gawky, Muggleborn Lily Potter, who is awkwardly married and, even more awkwardly, head of the Order of the Phoenix. What Severus is risking-- the things the Dark Lord does to punish those whose loyalty is wavering, are legendary. There have been no traitors.

He needs to give Severus something else to think about, something else to feel guilty about. Something they can both let Lord Voldemort find in their minds. He needs a secret, something dirty, something done in the dark.

They are Death Eaters, and shame and secrets both are difficult to come by. The only thing he can think of involves sex, which is taboo for the Dark Lord in a way that violence is not. Sex with Severus and his wife together is the kind of deviancy the Dark Lord finds most appalling-- sex for it's own sake, and not for procreation or advancement. He has put aside human desires, if he ever felt them.

It does not entirely surprise Lucius that Narcissa is willing. They have played this game before, though never with someone they know, never with a friend. She does most of the work: Severus is nominally heterosexual and she is a woman. Lucius watches them, neither amused nor aroused. He cannot forget either his betrayal or the thing he has learned from it. He takes them both to dinner at the Empire Room, and bribes the headwaiter to seat them in the darkest corner. He finds Muggle restaurants most private-- for business as well as pleasure.

He has never been jealous before, seeing his wife's rare smile turned on another man. He knows she loves him. He is not jealous now, watching Narcissa's small hand on Severus's thigh, the discreet flash of her breasts as she leans toward him. Severus looks from Narcissa to Lucius, Lucius to Narcissa, and for once his dark eyes are not cool at all.

Lucius smiles, and puts his own hand on Severus's other thigh. They are all Slytherins. There is no need for words. All of it, after that, is part of the game. The champagne the waiter brings by the bottle, and the out of season strawberries brought by aeroplane from Argentina; the deftness of Narcissa's fingers as she cuts the meat to pieces and feeds it to them in turn. The white of Severus's throat, above his collar.

Lucius eats one-handed like an American, the other hand between Severus's legs, moving half in earnest. He has done this before with Narcissa before they were married, pushed his fingers into her wet red slit and found the spot a thumb's height up and in the front, that invariably makes her orgasm even in public. He has never done it with a man before. Severus's cock is warm and hard under his hand. Lucius has no intention of letting him come, not so early in the evening.

By the time they bring the pudding Narcissa's hand is next to Lucius's. The diamonds of her wedding band scrape against his knuckles every time Severus shifts. Narcissa looks at Lucius across the table, and does not smile, but he recognizes the look on her face. She is ready for something more substantial than chocolate torte.

They take a taxi to Grosnevor Square, because Lucius isn't quite ready to move on from foreplay. Severus's square, blunt fingers are everywhere on Narcissa's body, but he sits with his back as much toward Lucius as is possible in the confines of the motorcar. If this were a seduction, Lucius's feelings would be hurt.

They aren't. He's never felt less like seduction in his life, and it puzzles him. He and Severus have shared women before: whores and Muggle girls, some of them willing and some of them not. They have been with one another, when there were no women to be had. He knows Severus's body, not so well as Narcissa's but well enough-- the pale chest with its mat of dark fur, the big purple cock with its uncut head, the way Severus's throat works when he comes.

This is different. He wishes he could call it off, but he knows that now it is too late. He watches as Narcissa undoes the buttons of Severus's shirt, as she kisses the hollow of his throat, the ridges of collarbones. He is not jealous. He is not, will not, be his father's son; he promised himself once that he would never love anyone that much.

He has never been much good at keeping his word, even to himself. It is not much comfort that he has only himself to blame. But he is not sure that this is envy, this knot in his stomach, this taste in his mouth. He has felt this once before. He is afraid it is love.

Love makes him think of Lily Potter's thin, freckled legs under her uniform skirt, her child's body and her blazing green eyes. Would she be heartbroken if she knew what Severus were doing now? He hopes so, for Severus's sake-- but he doesn't really believe it.

Falling in love with Narcissa was as easy as breathing; he hadn't mean to do it, and he couldn't have stopped himself. He cannot stop himself from loving Severus, either, even knowing that it is a fucking disaster in the making. He does not have to go willingly: he does not have to jump.

He pays the taxi driver and sends him away, ignoring the man's knowing smirk. London cabbies are like Death Eaters: hey have seen every variation on villainy, and none of it can surprise them any longer. The Malfoys' little brush with sexual promiscuity is amusing, not shocking.

He follows his wife and Severus inside and upstairs to the big canopied bed in the room with blue walls. His father and one of his brothers were born in that bed, and his grandfather and his father's first wife died in it. It is as inappropriate a place as he can think of to bring a fuck-- but it is the perfect place to bring a lover. There is the sanction of history on it, lying beneath the canopy three generations of house elves embroidered, with the eyes of his ancestors wild in their frames on the walls.

Narcissa goes into her dressing room to disrobe, and Lucius pours himself a drink-- eighty year old firewhiskey this time, and not champagne, because he needs to be far drunker than he is, to go through with it. Severus undresses before the fire, his movements quick and sure. He has no reason to be self conscious in front of Lucius: they have spent years changing robes in small places, and their bodies hold no secrets.

Lucius cannot stop himself from looking. He and Severus are distant cousins, and built alike-- wide shoulders and narrow hips, and the muscle that comes with fighting to survive. Severus is very pale everywhere but his hands and face, and his chest where the hair is very black, trailing down to his cock. He is unmarked, but for the Mark on his arm, still red and swollen around the edges from the summons of the night before. He is not beautiful, or even handsome, and he is sneering as he looks through the stack of books on Narcissa's nightstand.

Lucius's throat has gone tight with something that feels more like despair than desire, and he gulps down his firewhiskey before he turns away. He is married to one of the most beautiful witches in England, and he loves her. He will not love Severus.

Narcissa comes in, dressed in something made of cobweb-thin black silk, her hair loose down her back and her legs bare. She is old enough to be a wife and a mother, but she does not look it with her face unpainted. She kisses Lucius briefly, Severus lingeringly, and lies back on the bed, her breasts thrust upward.

Lucius begins to undo his cuff links, slowly, while Severus climbs atop Narcissa. If he has any doubts about betraying the woman he loves-- it does not show in the eagerness with which he thrusts himself into Lucius's wife. They seem to be enjoying themselves. Lucius could leave them to it, but that would be admitting something he does not want to admit, even to himself. And it would change things between them, and he is not ready for that.

He throws his shirt and evening trousers onto a chair for the house elves to sort out, and gets into bed with his wife and his best friend. They do not seem to be any more aware of his presence than they were of his absence. Narcissa's legs are around Severus's waist, and his eyes are closed as he drives into her.

He works his hand between them, slides his thumb over Narcissa's clitoris and feels her thighs clench around his hand, around Severus's cock. He licks his way up the ridges of Severus's spine to the spot where his shoulder meets his neck, and bites him, only half in play. He knows when Narcissa comes the second time, and Severus the first, and he rolls Severus off his wife and onto the bed and takes the softening cock in his mouth.

Severus tastes of Narcissa, which makes sense and which he hates for all of them. This is the world they were born to: the war, and ugly choices: this is the world they have. He is always gentle with Narcissa, not because of the smallness of her wrists or the ease with which she bruises but because he can remember how Pyrite Malfoy died. He has no reason to be gentle with Severus.

No matter how he runs from it, he is his father's son. He is rough, too rough, letting his teeth graze the tender skin on the underside of Severus's cock, crushing his balls with careless fingers. But Severus does not protest. He is growing hard again already. It is Narcissa who pulls Lucius away and shoves him onto his back.

She rouses his body the old fashioned way-- by magic-- and straddles him. Lucius thrusts against her, eyes closed, hands fisted in the sheets. He is grateful to her for seeing it, for stopping him before he does something he will regret. And he is tired of being the kind of man for whom regret is second nature.

With her, like this, he can almost forget they aren't alone in the big bed. The harsh breathing he can hear could be his own, and Narcissa's strong thighs around his hips are enough to anchor him. He loves the way she feels around him, hot and wet from another man inside her, and unbearably tight at this angle.

But they are not alone; it is Severus who pushes him until he rolls over onto his side, still inside Narcissa. And it is Severus who drives into him with no more warning than that, and no more preparation.

It hurts, which doesn't surprise him. In his experience, sex with men almost always hurts. Always, with Severus, who has very little gentleness in him. Lucius wonders if he is this rough with Lily, if they consummated whatever it is they think they have. If perhaps the roughness is what she prefers; some women do. He presses his forehead against Narcissa's shoulder, and waits for it to be bearable.

He wishes he had not thought of Severus and Lily together, even though that's unfair, even though he loves Narcissa as much, more, than Severus can possibly love Lily. He wants it to be the three of them, without the specter of a fourth. He wants it to be like this forever, no matter how much it hurts: Severus's weight warm and solid against his back, Narcissa clenched around his cock, small enough that the top of her head barely comes to his chin. One hard, and one soft, and he moves his hips again thinking of it, his body welcoming the pain and the pleasure that comes with it.

Lucius lets himself forget why he is doing this, and what he did that brought them here. He thrusts, Severus thrusts; he reaches around to cup Narcissa's breast in one hand while he steadies all of them withe the other, and he squeezes harder than he ordinarily would, so that she gasps and arches her back against him.

Afterward he lies on one side of the bed, and Severus lies on the other, with Narcissa between them. "Stay," he whispers, because he knows they are both asleep and won't hear him. "Please, stay." Because no one knows so well as a Death Eater does, that the world is a vast and terrible place, and that when they leave this bed and go out in it, and become who they are: that when they do that they will be destroyed. They are safe here, in this moment, but he cannot keep them safe any more than he can keep them here. Even love isn't enough, in the world they've made.

He's still awake when Severus gets up, in the dark, and dresses. It's very late, or very early. The stars are setting, and London is as quiet as it ever is. There are things Lucius could say to Severus, threats he could make, or promises, but there is nothing that would keep him. If he is very lucky, what he has done will be enough to distract Lord Voldemort. Severus will have to do the rest, or the war will, and maybe none of them will live, or all of them will. Maybe Lily will die, and Severus will come back, and maybe they will be together again someday. Even Lucius doesn't really believe it-- but he isn't too far gone to hope. He pretends to be sleeping, and he lets Severus go away without a word.


End file.
